The Dying Hour (21 page)

W
ade returned to the
Mirror
early that evening and stopped at the cafeteria for a BLT to eat at his desk before his shift.

“You’re back.” Ben Randolph joined him at the counter, dropping his voice. “How’s your father doing?”

“Better.”

“Good. I got an uncle with the same illness.” Randolph grabbed a spoon for his take-out soup. “Folded his new Mercedes around a tree in Westchester County. Walked away. Your father’s lucky he didn’t—”

“Look,” Jason said, “I’d rather not talk about it now.”

“No problem.”

“Jason Wade, investigative reporter, welcome back.” Astrid Grant joined them, holding a yogurt tub.

“We heard you drew some heat on the missing college girl story, that you hit the street like a damn Hardy boy trying to nail a villain.”

Randolph turned away.

“Astrid,” Jason said, “how hard did you push on the Benton County meeting on the Palmer murder?”

“Hard enough. There was nothing to it.”

“Was the FBI there? Was Sawridge County there? Could it be they met because they got a lead on evidence, or maybe a link to another murder?”

“I was told it was a routine case status meeting to simply compare notes. Nothing came out of it.”

“And you believed it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Give it up, Wade.”

“Give what up?”

“You really think that after that scene with your dad, and the fact your rogue research habits pissed off a few people, you’re still in the running for a job here?”

Jason said nothing.

“And you’re all indignant and possessive over your little Karen Harding story,” she said. “Here’s a bulletin for you: there are other stories. And if the Harding case ever gets bigger, they’ll put their Pulitzer winners on it.”

Jason watched the cook assemble his sandwich.

“And another thing,” she continued. “Ben and I found out that the editors have a secret point system to select the intern for the full-time job. You get points for the types of stories you do and the play they get. I’m sure you can guess where you’re ranked.”

He could. Especially with the dangerous intersections story he’d just been assigned.

“Hope your license to drive a forklift at the brewery is still valid.” Astrid smiled before walking off with Randolph, their laughter echoing.

At his desk, Jason pushed the traffic study aside and inserted his disk with the Cull feature he was writing.

He read every word, then stared at his phone. He had to know what had come out of the Benton County meeting. He dialed a cell phone number.

“Stralla.”

“Detective Stralla, it’s Jason Wade at the
Seattle Mirror.
”

“Well, well. I understand you’ve been on the road, doing some digging in Spokane and Benton County.”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

“Hang on, call me back on a landline.”

Stralla gave him a number, likely his home number. Jason called back. “Listen, Detective, I know there was a multijurisdictional meeting on the Palmer case in Kennewick. I need to know what transpired.”

A moment passed.

“You didn’t get any of this from me, understand?”

Jason’s grip on the phone tightened.

“Absolutely.”

“You’re right about the meeting, your timing’s good. We’ve formed a small task force to look for links to the Palmer murder and other cases.”

“Who’s
we?
”

“Sawridge, Benton, Spokane, WSP, the FBI, and Klamath out of Oregon.”

“Oregon? Did you find a link to Oregon?”

Stralla thought about the question. “Let me make some calls. I’ll get back to you.”

Earlier that day, Stralla had been on a conference call with Buchanan and the others, a follow-up to the meeting. The FBI had urged the investigators to put out a news statement on the new information about the Oregon and Washington cases. The thinking was it would yield a lead. Giving something to Jason Wade now might be the best way to do it, Stralla reasoned.

It took him several minutes to convince Buchanan to release the break to Wade. He was still sore over Wade’s use of the term “ritualistic killing” in his first story, but eventually he agreed with Stralla to let some data go. “As long as the guys in Spokane and Oregon were good with it,” Buchanan said. Stralla called them and was green-lighted all the way, then he made a note to himself to alert Karen Harding’s sister, Marlene, in Vancouver.

On his call back to Wade, Stralla told him that Roxanne Palmer’s killer had murdered a woman in Oregon nearly ten years ago.

“What? How do you know?” Jason asked.

“Similar fact evidence found in both cases.”

“Can I quote you now?”

“Yes, as a member of this task force. We’re looking for any link to Karen Harding’s disappearance because it appears to fit a pattern.”

“What kind of pattern?”

“We’re not releasing that.”

“What kind of evidence did you find?”

“We’re not releasing that either.”

“Are there ritualistic overtones to the murders?”

“I can’t confirm that.”

“Are you denying it?”

“No.”

“Hang on a sec.” Jason clamped his hand over the mouthpiece and yelled across the newsroom to the editors on the night desk, “I’ve got a story coming!”

“Forty-five minutes to first edition.”

Jason nodded, then went back on the line to Stralla.

“Have you identified the Oregon woman?”

“No, I’ll fax you some details. We’re seeking the public’s help.”

Jason was writing notes fast. He recited his fax number twice. With Stralla still on the line he stared at his computer screen and his draft profile of Gideon Cull. Tapping his pen on his notebook, studying the words on his monitor, he gave it a shot.

“Do you have any suspects?”

“We’re looking at everything.”

“But any specific suspects?”

“Nothing that we’re prepared to discuss publicly.”

“Off the record?”

“Can’t help you there.”

Studying his screen, Jason scrolled through all of the information he had on Cull. It resonated in the wake of what Stralla was telling him.

“Are you going to be around tomorrow?” Jason asked.

“Should be, why?”

“I’m coming up to see you. There’s something we should talk about.”

“Call me on my cell when you get here.”

Jason’s story landed on the front page.

That night he walked to his Falcon with a damp copy under his arm, certain he was getting closer to the truth behind Karen Harding’s disappearance and the murders of two young women.

K
aren Harding trembled while listening to the RV’s wheels, humming like an ancient chant to the horrors she had seen.

And the horrors still to come.

She was locked in her hidden chamber in the rear.

Her coffin.

The reverend had reinforced the sections she had kicked out, back when she had the will to fight for her life. Now her courage lay dead on the road hundreds of miles behind her. She was weak, tired, and utterly alone.

Julie was gone.

She had watched her die.

Oh, Julie.

Karen swallowed. She was going to die next. Her body quaked, then went numb. She prayed.

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…

Karen prayed again and again as the wheels droned and the RV plunged deeper into the high country of the great Rocky Mountain range. She prayed until she lost consciousness and all sense of time.

* * *

The RV’s swaying rocked her awake.

They were slowing. Turning. The engine whined. Karen could feel the pull of gravity, heard the clickclick of the motor home’s four-way lights as they ascended the narrow highways through the mountains.

They came to a town.

Karen was now expert at deciphering sounds, movements, and smells. Stopping at traffic lights, inching their way along a main street, she detected the deepfried aroma of a fast food restaurant, then a bakery, then the diesel growl of a big truck.

Voices!

She heard voices. People! Salvation was a only few feet beyond the walls that imprisoned her.
Somebody, help me! Please!
Karen tried kicking but couldn’t move. She tried calling out but the gag muted her cry. The voices faded. The RV left the community, gathering speed, then resumed traveling on the highway.

Soon they slowed again, leaving the smooth paved highway for a dirt road that twisted and undulated through a dense forest. She could smell the sweet cedar and pine, feel branches brushing against them as they tottered along the rugged terrain. They slowed. Turned again, crawled for miles along a twisting, uneven earthen road before they came to a halt.

How much longer would he let her live?

The reverend killed the engine.

It ticked as it cooled. Karen was overwhelmed with a feeling of finality, that a decision had been made. Instinct told her this was it. Her time was up. Something was going to happen.

Karen felt the RV dip as the reverend approached her, heard him grunt as he lowered himself, keys jingling, her compartment opening. Blinding bright light hit her eyes. Before her vision adjusted, he thrust a hood over her head, yanked her to her feet, and out of the RV.

The clank of metal, then cold steel on her skin. A chain was secured around her neck. Then the chink of a long leader that jerked, making her cry into her gag, compelling her to walk forward, blind to the terrain.

Blind to what awaited her.

Karen stumbled several times, struggling to find purchase on the earth as tall grass and scrub snagged her legs and arms. Insects pinged on and off of her. She felt their tiny frantic legs on her neck and hands, heard the buzz of large flies, smelled the horrible stink of rotting things.

He yanked at her leash, the chain clinked, the sudden movement lifted her hood slightly, light spilled inside. She could see the ground.

She raised her chin to the sky, catching flash-glimpses of the path they were on and the reverend’s back. He was wearing black jeans, a plaid shirt, the chain glinting in the sun. She saw steep foothills, carpeted with forests, rising to the snowcapped mountain peaks.

The leash pulled her farther along the path. It sloped down. And down. Earthen walls canopied by scrub rose like wartime trenches blocking the sun, smelling of damp, foul earth. Light lost to the darkness here.

Jangling as they came to a door. It had three forged steel locks. As he slid a key into the first, Karen felt something furry nudge her feet.

A rat?

She kicked it away but it came back. Then the door opened and the reverend pulled Karen inside. It was too dark for her to see.

Keys jangled again.

Another door.

Karen heard him working the locks, sliding metal bolts. Heard the thud of the weight of the door as he pulled it open. A wave of stomach-churning stench, a mix of feces, urine, and decay, rolled from the interior.

The chain jerked.

Karen was shoved inside, feeling the damp horrid floor after she’d been pushed to her stomach. Her chain and bindings were removed. The door sealed the room, followed by the slamming of steel bolts and the snapclick of locks. A moment later, she heard him locking the second outer door.

Stunned, she collected herself, pressing her hands to the floor, feeling straw and something wet. She cringed, stifled a sob, removed her hood, pulled out her gag, and spat.

Reflex forced her to vomit.

After several moments, Karen stood, her eyes watering. She cupped her hands over her mouth and nose. She dared not move as her eyes adjusted.

She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision.

She was entombed.

A shaft of natural light pierced the ceiling, allowing her to inventory the room. No more than nine feet by nine feet. About six feet in height. It had cinder block walls, sweating and dripping with water. A narrow steel-framed bed with a thin mattress and frayed woolen blanket was pushed to one corner. A manacle and chain was affixed to the bed’s head. A shackle with a length of chain, secured to the foot.

Next to the bed, a small case of bottled water and boxes of granola bars and crackers. In the far corner, a plastic bucket. Next to it, several rolls of tissue and a large supply of sanitary items.

Karen coughed.

She touched the ceiling. It had a one-foot-by-one-foot opening. An air shaft. Sunlight flowed through a hole reinforced with steel bars and razor wire. She gripped it and pulled. Rock solid.

No way out.

He must live alone out here. Isolated. There was no one to help her. No one to hear her scream. No way to escape. She stepped to the door, constructed of heavy wooden beams. Hinges on the outside. Lock mechanisms fortified. What was that? Karen drew her face closer.

Scratches.

Fingers had clawed at a crack in the door. It seemed futile. Karen looked to the floor. She spotted a human fingernail, picked it up, and held it under the sunlight. It was glossed, clean, well kept. Karen looked at the door’s scratch marks. Fear coiled around her, making her heart beat faster.

She turned.

Holding the nail, she slammed her back to the door and slid to the foul floor as a shaft of light painted a segment of the cinder block wall, illuminating a letter.

Karen concentrated for a few seconds, realizing she was staring at several letters. No, a word. No. Two words. In large letters, scrawled on the wall with something that had dried brown.

Human blood turns brown when it dries.

Karen did all she could not to scream. Her eyes widened at the words:

Help me

J
acked up on morning coffee, Jason Wade was in his Falcon northbound to Bellingham on I-5 when Ron Nestor called on his cell phone.

“Nice work on today’s front page.”

“Thanks.”

“I want you to advance the Seattle angle on the story.”

“I’m heading to Bellingham as we speak.”

“Were you planning on telling me?”

“Sent you an e-mail. I’m going to hook up with Hank Stralla, the detective on Harding’s case, push for something on her professor and boyfriend.”

“You’re going to have to break something new. The Associated Press moved your story on the wire. It means everyone with an interest is going to try to get ahead of us, break the next development on the case. Like your friend in Spokane.”

“Right. I tipped him on it last night.”

“You did what? Don’t do that again. Don’t give away our exclusives.”

“But I made a deal to share for the help he gave me in Spokane.”

“All right, keep your deal with him. But next time tip him
after
his deadline. You can bet he’ll do the same. Especially now that he won’t be the only one jumping on your scoop today. We’ve heard that one of the Seattle TV news stations is doing something with its affiliates in Portland and Spokane. The
Times
and the
P-I
will be chasing this. And the
Oregonian.
Find news and keep me posted.”

“What about the traffic series?”

“I’ve passed it to Astrid. At the moment you’re the only one I can spare on Harding. It’s all yours. I’m getting a sense more could break on this.”

This was his shot, he thought, rolling by the Tulalip Indian Reservation, glancing at the file folders he’d tossed on the passenger side. Gideon Cull’s photo peeked from them. The guy
was
creepy. If Stralla confirmed he was a suspect, then maybe Nestor would run his profile.

It might break this story wide open.

“Drop me off at the office, Raife,” Stralla told Ansboro as they drove through Bellingham.

Stralla was frustrated. Time was hammering against him. A hot lead had fizzled out on them. They’d just finished following up on a fifty-year-old level-three sex offender-kidnapper who lived in a battered RV just outside Bellingham. He’d been registered since the early 1990s after serving his sentence for kidnapping and raping two young women from mall parking lots. The first in Longview, the second in Tacoma.

According to his file he had refused most treatment and was evaluated as a high risk to reoffend after telling his counselor that he still fantasized about repeating his crimes and often missed taking his medication. He was a trucker, known to frequent the Big Timber Truck Stop. Turned out he was at a motel around the time Karen Harding vanished, but it was a long way off in Portland, Oregon. He was solidly alibied, like the three dozen other offenders on Sawridge County’s registry they’d checked out since her disappearance.

Ansboro stopped the four-by-four in front of the sheriff’s office and said, “I’ll go down to Marysville, see what’s new with the lab.”

As Stralla got out, his cell phone rang with a call from Jason Wade, saying he’d be arriving soon. Stralla invited him to his office, then looked at the sky, darkening with gathering storm clouds.

At his desk, he scanned the
Seattle Mirror
with Wade’s story, then shuffled through his phone messages. Mostly press calls. He cupped his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes.

He hadn’t been getting much sleep, or seeing much of his son. He studied his files again. Was he missing something?

He felt like a fool, wrestling self-doubt and pinballing between opposing theories. It was a remote possibility that Karen had staged her own disappearance, hopped a freighter to Central America to find her parents and live there after her blowout with her boyfriend, Luke Terrell.

What a prize he turned out to be. With his drugs and lies. A first-class asshole who’d cost them so much time. He wasn’t entirely ruled out as a suspect. This could stem from drug debt. Seattle was working on that.

Still, Stralla’s instincts told him that Karen had been abducted and was likely dead. Like Roxanne and Bonnie. Or had she simply run off ? Damn. Intentional disappearance, or abduction-homicide? He couldn’t get a handle on this. There were so many pieces and possibilities.

Had he missed something obvious?

Concentrate on the evidence.

Her keys, left in her car. No activity on her bank or credit cards. No calls, letters, or e-mails. The State Department had no activity on her passport. Her car could’ve been disabled. Tire impressions suggested the possible involvement of a truck or an RV, which was consistent with the Benton County case. They’d failed to get any usable footwear impressions here or at Hanna Larssen’s farm. No latents, fiber, or DNA.

He examined the file with the inventory of evidence collected from a one-hundred-yard area surrounding the scene along 539 where Karen’s Toyota was found. A lot of stuff. Most of it likely insignificant garbage. Stralla scratched the stubble on his chin as he took note of some of the items from the long list.

SWCMP: 231605 HARDING, Karen WSP CLS CS Exterior Evidence Inventory Completed by: CRONIN, V. / CSRT

Nine soda cans, see appendix

Six juice boxes, re: appendix

Eleven beer cans, re: appendix

Four beer bottles, re: appendix

Assorted candy bar wrappers, re: appendix

Assorted Newspapers, re: appendix

Place mat map of B.C. from Ida May’s Restaurant, re: appendix

One torn work glove

One plastic oil bottle, re: appendix

One torn paperback novel. War and Peace by Tolstoy

Assorted food wrappers, re: appendix

One screwdriver

Nineteen pieces of rubber from shredded tires.

The list went on.

The weather was chaotic that night, rain, strong winds. Unrelated items could’ve blown into the scene from miles away. How would this stand up in court? Stralla was still wondering if the key was here in the files when his line rang. Jason Wade had arrived.

They got fresh coffee and sat at Stralla’s desk.

The sky had turned day to night. Bellingham’s offices and stores lit up automatically. Traffic flowed through the core in streams of white and red lights.

“Looks like a big one’s brewing,” Jason said.

Stralla nodded to the paper on his desk. “Good story.”

“Thanks. Anything new on the case?”

“You tell me. You said you needed to talk about something.”

Jason reached into his small backpack, pulled out his files and notebook, then glanced around Stralla’s small cubicle, as if searching for a way to begin. “Look, let’s go off the record,” he said. “If we hit on something, we’ll reach an agreement on how to use it.”

Stralla nodded.

“Do you have any suspects?”

“The investigation crosses into several jurisdictions, so potentially we’re looking at a lot of people and a lot of things.”

“What about Gideon Cull, Karen Harding’s college professor, are you looking at him?”

“His name rings a bell. The Seattle PD, campus police, or the FBI would be the ones who’d interview him. Why do you raise his name?”

“I’ve been following up leads that came to me from my stories, and his name came up as someone to look at.”

For the next half hour, he told Stralla all he’d learned about Gideon Cull, then passed him a folder with photographs of Cull taken from the college Web site, church groups, and snapshots from his charity work Jason had found on the Net.

One of Cull with the governor, one with him helping street people with an RV in the background, one of Bonnie Stillerman, one of him in a group, his hands on Karen Harding’s shoulders. Jason noticed Stralla’s eyebrows ascend slightly as he studied the pictures.

“Have you ruled out Gideon Cull as a suspect in this case?”

Stralla’s face tightened.

“Don’t quote me. We’re still working on his history. Seattle’s looking at him. I know he’s on the interview list. We’re talking to everyone in Karen’s circles. All of her teachers, all of her friends, to get an idea of her patterns, her habits, see how they come into play.”

“Can I say Cull has not been ruled out as a suspect?”

“Hold on.” Stralla reached for his cell phone and, from what Jason could determine, made a call to a detective in Seattle. Stralla’s wooden captain’s chair creaked as he walked out of earshot to the far end of the squad room.

Jason doodled in his notebook, aware Stralla could still see him from across the room, yet he was oblivious of what had suddenly transpired. Slowly, Jason’s attention shifted to something curious. The open file on Stralla’s desk. It was upside down, but it dawned on Jason that before him was the inventory of evidence from the Harding scene.

He stopped doodling.

Subtly and slowly, he wrote every word he could see while Stralla talked to his counterpart. Wade had managed to record most of the list by the time Stralla had hung up and returned.

“All right, I’ll tell you this, and you can quote me.”

Jason sat up, flipped to a new page, and nodded.

“Gideon Cull is a person we intend to interview.”

“Why?”

“It’s SOP, we’ve talked to other college staff who know Karen.”

“Your interest in Cull has nothing to do with his past?”

“I’m not certain how much of his past we know. Our interest stems from the fact he’s one of her teachers, all part of a standard investigation.”

“Has he been ruled out as a suspect?”

Stralla considered the question as his gaze went to the photographs Jason had showed him.

“At this point, no one’s been ruled out or crossed off as a suspect.”

“Then he
is
a suspect.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Fine, but he hasn’t been ruled out as one.”

“Right.”

“But you intend to question him.”

“Interview him.”

“What’s the holdup?”

“Apparently, he travels a lot.”

“Do you know his whereabouts the night Karen Harding disappeared?”

“That’s one thing we’ll want to confirm. It’s routine.”

“I’m going to offer a story quoting you on the record saying Cull has not been ruled out as a suspect.”

“As it stands right now, that’s a fact.”

Jason thought for several moments before checking the time and nodding. “Thanks.” He had nothing more to ask. He collected his files. “You can keep the photographs. I’ve got copies,” he said, shaking hands with Stralla, who then saw him to the elevator.

After Jason left, Stralla stood alone at his desk searching the black sky as thunder pounded over Bellingham. He stared down at the city. What was it Morris Pitman, the Benton County coroner, had said about the nature of the branding in the cases? It arose from a historical case.

What does VOV mean?

Stralla shuffled through the papers of his files. Pitman had given them a one-page summary of his theory on the branding. Didn’t Cull teach religious history? And what about that RV in the photograph Wade had showed him? And Cull with his hands on Karen’s shoulders? And Cull with the governor?

Stralla rubbed his temple.

He could feel time ticking away.